By Purushottam P. Khatri
Kathmandu, Feb. 15: A few days ago, a wide body A-330 aircraft of Nepal Airlines Corporation landed at Tribhuvan International Airport carrying 18 dead bodies and a luggage from Malaysia.
An average of three bodies are brought to Nepal from abroad on a daily basis, and, among them, one is from Malaysia, according to Foreign Employment Promotion Board (FEPB).
Malaysia is a popular destination for cheap labour workers, who are forced to go abroad for employment.
There are about 300,000 Nepalis toiling there now. And every year dozens of Nepali workers meet their untimely demise for various reasons, according to the Board.
According to Rajan Shrestha, Executive Director of the Board Secretariat, an average of one Nepali is killed daily in Malaysia. He said that more Nepali workers die in Malaysia than any other country.
According to the Board, the main problem is that many Nepalis do not know the situation well before flying to Malaysia. With this in mind, the government has now made arrangements to attend a mandatory two-day orientation before going abroad.
Shrestha said that the Board is expecting some improvement now as the Board has implemented a new curriculum for all foreign employment with a separate curriculum for Malaysia.

How many Nepalis died in Malaysia in 13 years?
According to the Board, 8,906 Nepalis lost their lives in 21 countries from the fiscal year 2008/09 to 2020/21. Of them, 34 per cent deaths were in Malaysia.
According to the records, 77 people lost their lives in seven countries in 2008/09, while 16 per cent or 13 people lost their lives in Malaysia alone.
As of January 28, 2021 of the current fiscal, 762 Nepali migrant workers had died in 21 countries and of them, 165 Nepalis working in Malaysia lost their lives.
According to records of the last 13 years, the highest numbers of casualties were reported in 2071/72, with 1,006 deaths in 15 countries, and of them 424 people died in Malaysia.
According to Shrestha, the Board could not bring the bodies for about a month this year due to coronavirus pandemic. Therefore, 18 bodies were brought the same time after the air service became easier.
Even now, 65 bodies are yet to be brought from eight different countries, including the Gulf, but there are still 25 bodies in Malaysia alone.

Why do so many deaths occur?
According to the Foreign Employment Board Secretariat, Malaysia has the highest number of undocumented deaths in the last 13 years. The cause of death of 689 people has not been mentioned in the report.
A total of 665 people have died of heart attack and 441 from natural causes. The fourth leading cause of death is suicide. During this period, 422 persons committed suicide.
In the period of eight years from the fiscal year 2013/14 to the Fiscal Year 2020/21, the Board’s record showed that 1,398,579 Nepali people had gone to 140 countries as migrant workers, 40 per cent of them to Malaysia.
Former Nepali Ambassador

to Malaysia Dr. Rishi Adhikari said that most deaths are due to mental tension caused by work stress, alcohol consumption and so on. He said that the government of Nepal, employers and the workers themselves should work to reduce the death rate.
Labour and employment expert Dr. Ganesh Gurung said that although most of the deaths were due to heat in the Gulf countries, the main cause of death in Malaysia could not be ascertained. He said that there is a lot of work stress, too much alcohol consumption habit and many deaths due to mental stress.
When Gurung was a member of the National Planning Commission, the government had formed a committee to study the cause of death of many Nepalis in the Gulf countries and Malaysia. He said that the committee returned after studying the cases abroad but never submitted the report.
“The cause of death has not been studied properly and the study has not even completed, which has added challenge to solving the problem,” he said. A labour agreement between Nepal and Malaysia was signed on March 26, 2019, 20 years after Nepali migrant workers started flying to that country.